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The Rapids: A jazz of poetry

The Rapid is a new form developed by Yogesh Patel. The prime test for a good Rapid is jostles, disorientation and excitement of a Thunder River Rapids Ride! This is a jazz of poetry. It is a hallucination that weirdly makes sense! These are the poems on the run, ideas falling on each other occasionally, shaken and stirred. Therefore, just the rules of this form do not make the Rapids! However, to drill the commotion, the form has rules.

The core rules:

•                  As the poem is a 5-1 sestet of short lines

•                  The maximum line length is accentual tetrameter. If shorter, try to maintain a pattern.

•                  As no exception to the rule, the sixth line must be in tetrameter, accentual or otherwise, separate and must be split equally in the middle as 2-2

•                  The two-stress end phrase helps on its own in extending the allegory being handled

•                  The title increments poem’s meaning. It is not a repeat of the theme.

•                  Along with disrupted connectivity, the suggestiveness through metaphorical, folklore or mythical stories and characters is an important aspect of this form

Here is what some poets who have enjoyed writing it have to say:

Liberate to the point of anarchy

All poems have structure—even blank verse and free verse. A good poem is one in which structure and content are seamlessly married and the poet simultaneously enjoys a sense of freedom in creating the poem. A poem fails when the reader notices these requirements are not realised. I have always found of interest such traditional forms as the ghazal, the villanelle, and the sonnet; so, I was naturally drawn to the Rapid, a new arrival in the world of poetry (Yogesh Patel invented it in 2020). It can rival any traditional form in its stringent requirements of length, metre and format. But what I find so remarkable about this form is that it can also be liberating to the point of anarchy! The freedom of expression that it offers can mislead one into thinking that the Rapid is a quick and easy option; but I would caution all poets bold enough to essay this form. The Rapid too is much more than the sum of its structure and layout. Its subject matter and revelation are important. Its teasing, its insight and its surprise element, the enjoyment in the ghazal couplet-like individuality and connectivity of each Rapid line - all these are part and parcel of this challenging new form of poetry.

-Dr Debjani Chatterjee MBE FRSL

How to surf a poetic rapid

A new form to grab this intense, mixed up world, fast; here’s how to write a rapid:

Step 1: Listen to your heartbeat, four times. De-dum. De-dum. De-dum. De-dum. That’s the gallop to hit.

Step 2: Grab something, everything and anything that might be around you. Distil it into four lines.

Step 3: Concentrate now. Pour what you’ve surfed into something smaller – that’s line 5.

Step 4: Find your focus, the revelation, the drop. That’s line number 6.

Step 5. Take that line, give it some air. Tab a gap between your first two beats and your last.

Step 6: Leap back up. Set a riddle or a jump beyond for your title.

Paddle hard. Catch the wave.

-Rishi Dastidar

Distract, divert, connect, and clarify!

It is not every day that a new and refreshing poetic form emerges. So, welcome to the new world of the Rapid, with thanks to Yogesh Patel for the new world discovery! All you need for the voyage is the imagination and discipline to reveal an insight into your world within ‘six’ lines of formatted iambic tetrameter; lines that:

1.   Individually distract and divert, but

2.   collectively connect and clarify with the title plus final, heavily formatted, line serving to:

Drop the anchor,              Seal the voyage.

3.   Finally, and hopefully, reveal something revealing of your new world.

  So; Easy, eh!                     Si, Bon chance!

-Brian D’Arcy

The quantum Rapid!

More random than established tightly structured forms, and far more suited to our fragmented, sound-bitten times, Rapids jostle sets of often juxtaposed ideas. Densely packed semantics, tied together by a pincer movement of title and last line, explode upon observation to leave trails of understanding that belie their tiny size.

Consciousness in Waves

Semantic couplets  tiny nuggets
Bring purpose                         once observed
Unread       their magic dies
Four lines foreshadow         comprehension
In gaps between     the real

Probably—No idea is of      itself, alone

-Jason Reading

What makes a good Rapid:

·         First four lines should establish an atmosphere, intensely and variously, and the poem’s concept, premise, statement, idea, or stage through disconnects or a single narrative. Try to create bounces.

·         Fifth line will borrow the essence of the first four lines and develop it further to prepare for the sixth line. It is expected to create a separate tangent in a viewpoint established. Again to break a linear appearance of a poetic narrative.

·         The sixth line can flow as a part of the fifth line or be an independent disconnect. You should add an extra tangent to the metaphor or an allegory, which should help enhance the meaning of all lines.

·         In this sixth line, the tabbed caesura occurs between the second and third stress. This deliberate break creates two individual parts falling apart possibly with their own points!

·         A title is a suggestive throwback of the poem’s core idea, but mostly a twist as a metaphor or an idea: not a dull reaffirmation of the theme.

·         The Rapid crystallizes an expression that would have been a longer poem.

·         These poems are not linear, not like Tanka. They will fail as Rapids, if they have no disorientation language, metaphors, myths, etc.

·         A fast pace is another reason what separates Rapids from other forms. Iambic pentameter is what our ears are trained to, while tetrameter and shorter trimeter are less in use. Sestets on their own are also considered as lower forms of poems by some academics! The form rebels against these traditionalist notions.

You will find some examples in the latest issue of the Pratik magazine.

-YP

Here is my Rapid on the Rapid!

The Rapid: Cogito, ergo sum

Go for a treasure hunt in a fragmented poet

Where am I?     “Love cannot live without trust.”

Psyche heartbroken Find me, I’ll be

disconnections:       images, legends

I am rules            chaos in a pirouette

Thunder River        a torrent-in-kicks

Rishi Dastidar is a well-known poet. His Rapid is a good representation of the tough year we have faced in 2020. It is a perfect example of this form’s possibilities to be contemporary and modern, simultaneously!

on vacation

wandering around

google street view

is how we tourist now

our presence in real life

footsteps too far

distance   is ghostly

So, to invite you to write one, see what is happening here.

The core rules:

•                 Rapid is a poem of six lines (sestet) written as 5-1 lines. The last one separate and dropping away with its own concept.

•                 You should write the lines with the maximum four stresses (accentual tetrameter). If shorter, try to maintain a pattern.

•                 However, the sixth line must be in tetrameter, accentual or otherwise, separate and must be split equally in the middle as 2-2.

•                 The two-stress end phrase helps on its own in extending the allegory being handled.

•                 The title increments poem’s meaning. It is not a repeat of the theme.

So, what makes the good Rapid?

·         First four lines should establish the poem’s concept, premise, statement, idea, or a stage through disconnects or a single narrative. Try to create bounces.

·         Fifth line will borrow the essence of the first four lines and develop it further to prepare for the sixth line. It is expected to create a separate tangent in a viewpoint established.

·         The sixth line then drops away from the five lines. However, it can flow as a part of the fifth line or be an independent disconnect. For its independence, you should add extra tangent to the metaphor or an allegory.

·         In this sixth line, the tabbed caesura occurs between the second and third stress. This deliberate break creates two individual parts falling apart possibly with their own points!

·         A title is a suggestive throwback of the poem’s core idea, but mostly a twist as a metaphor or an idea: not a dull reaffirmation of the theme.

·         The Rapid crystallizes an expression that would have been a longer poem.

·         A fast pace is another reason what separates Rapids from other forms.

Here is another example of the form for you to study. It is by an Irish poet Brian D’Arcy

Now we Really are in it Together

Deckchairs littering the wasteland

Dealers have enjoyed their party.

Bankers see their profits rising.

and dreamers dream as dreamers must.

So light the fuse, if you insist,

Let madmen cry their battle cry.